Gullible Fundies Must Have Amnesia As They Cheer Glatze’s Conversion

It is difficult to tell if some fundamentalist Christians are born again or simply born yesterday. There is no other group in America so easily led, willingly bamboozled, and eager to repeat tomfoolery.

The latest example is the way fundies, such as World Net Daily columnist Art Moore, are cooing over the marriage of former gay activist Michael Glatze to a woman named Rebekah. They are celebrating his marriage as living proof that a gay person can become straight through prayer. A typical comment on Moore’s column about Glatze read: “What a beautiful story, that will give hope to so many people everywhere.”

No matter that it is false hope that will lead to shattered families and ruined lives. It is as if these people are amnesiacs, who have miraculously forgotten that virtually every example of an “ex-gay” transformation made public has boomeranged. Like clockwork, the “healed” homosexuals who have been thrust into the limelight eventually reemerge from the closet to say, “Whoops, I was never really straight, but tricked you, so I could fit in and not be ridiculed.”

In the past two years, Alan Chambers, the President Exodus International, formerly the largest “ex-gay” organization, said that 99.9% of his clients could not shift from gay to straight. Former Love in Action director, John Smid, is now out of the closet. Former Love Won Out director, John Paulk, has come out and apologized to the LGBT community. Jerry Falwell’s favorite example of a healed homosexual, Michael Johnston, is working for the same sex addiction facility in Kentucky that he was shipped off to in 2003. Furthermore, the latest science shows a strong biological basis for sexual orientation.

Yet, once again fundies are allowing themselves to be suckered. As an old saying, applied to these dupes, might go: “Fool me once shame on you, fool me a hundred times, I’ll earn a scholarship to Liberty University.”

Those who are cheering Glatze actually believe that his marriage is somehow proof of his changed sexual orientation. However, anyone, no matter how insincere, can walk down an aisle and slip a ring on the finger of another human being. It proves nothing other than Glatze is willing to potentially ruin the life of his young wife in order to achieve his fundamentalist bona fides. Indeed, this perpetual stage horse surely knows that wedding bells dramatically increase his chance of finding work in the “ex-gay” industry or religious right.

What will these cheerleaders say when Glatze’s alleged transformation fails, as it almost surely will if history is a guide?

Sadly, we already know the answer. These “good Christians” will coldly wash their hands of Glatze and cruelly blame him for being insufficiently Christian. When he no longer fits into their storyline, they will shun his family and pretend Glatze and his broken ex-wife (and possibly their children) never existed. Then, they will impatiently wait for their next phony hero to emerge, and place him or her on a new pedestal – until he/she falls. This is the sick cycle of shame that too many fundamentalist Christians elect to embrace.

The homophobes who support Glatze are not creating more heterosexuals. Instead, they are driving gay men deeper into the closet, where they are, ironically, more likely to practice the very promiscuity social conservatives purport to loathe. Harvard Ph.D. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, wrote in The New York Times:

“Additional evidence that suggests that many gay men in intolerant states are deeply in the closet comes from a surprising source: the Google searches of married women. It turns out that wives suspect their husbands of being gay rather frequently. In the United States, of all Google searches that begin “Is my husband…,” the most common word to follow is “gay.” “Gay” is 10 percent more common in such searches than the second-place word, “cheating.” It is 8 times more common than “an alcoholic” and 10 times more common than “depressed.”

“I analyzed ads for males looking for ‘casual encounters.’ The percentage of these ads that are seeking casual encounters with men tends to be larger in less tolerant states. Among the states with the highest percentages are Kentucky, Louisiana and Alabama. There is, in other words, a huge amount of secret suffering in the United States that can be directly attributed to intolerance of homosexuality.”

You can probably add Wyoming to the list, now that Glatze lives there, while we can only imagine Rebekah’s sad Google searches a few years removed from the wedding. While anti-gay activists may be celebrating this marriage, they should instead be hesitating and reflect on the damage such phony unions are already doing to the family values they claim to support.

About the Author

Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

16 Comments

BrandonDecember 10, 2013 at 9:50 pm -

In all honesty given the failures of the “ex-gay” industry and how these “therapies” are not sanctioned by anyone in the medical or psychological community,the fundie homophobes have all ready lost, they just don’t know went to admit it,only a complete sucker would buy into this crap known as “pray the gay away”,hahaha welcome to the feeble-minds of the religious right.

JonDecember 11, 2013 at 12:31 am -

Despite also being married to a woman, at least Alan Chambers acknowledges his same-sex attractions and the fact that virtually no one changes from gay to straight.

Michael Glatze in contrast, not only claims to be 100% heterosexual, but has the nerve to say ALL LGBTs can change just like him.

Paul DouglasDecember 11, 2013 at 2:37 am -

Fundagelical christianists have to adopt this party line to earn credibility to their new mentors and masters, as Wayne points out so well. Glatze is in the early John Paulk stage of his career. He is on stage and getting lots of energy, good press & lots of attention for playing the game. He is finding a career path opening up to him that dovetails nicely with his new and I’m sure, sincerely held convictions. The fact that these “convictions” are not based on any verifiable evidence or replicable testability does not matter to Glatze in the least. His beliefs are strictly based on emotion and subjective numinous experiences that have been interpreted for him by the fundagelical community he has opted to inculturate himself with. Only if he is truly a truth-seeker will he ever have any hope of actually stepping outside of his newly constructed christianist box and finding the freedom to get to know and be himself as a healthy, mature, adult gay man.
I’m skeptical that he ever will, but he might.

SteveDecember 11, 2013 at 4:44 pm -

Alan Chambers is very, very likely bisexual. Which is probably the case of most people who claim to be gay are are in successful opposite-sex marriages.

KurtDecember 11, 2013 at 8:07 pm -

“Same-sex attractions” is religious-crazy hate speech for “gay”. Nobody who isn’t a lunatic says they have “same-sex attractions”. Why would they, when “gay” already exists? Alan Chambers is gay (just like all the gay men since the dawn of time who have been having sex with women — and that queen is in no way bisexual).

Richard RushDecember 11, 2013 at 8:33 am -

“What a beautiful story, that will give hope to so many people everywhere [that their daughters will have a chance to experience the joy of marrying a gay man pretending to be straight].”

CJDecember 11, 2013 at 11:58 am -

Wayne, this is one of the best and most pogniant bits you’ve written. You nailed this travesty down to a tee. I am so disgusted the way married “ex-gays” (some I know personally, some I know of) have used their decision to maintain a lifestyle of dishonesty and shame against me and other married gay men to “stay the course” and live this ridiculous lie for another 20-30 years. Talk about “destroying marriage”.

And thanks to these purveyors of piety and going public, the fungelicals can all gather around them and shower them with (false) praise while shaming and Matthew 18-ing (aka shunning) those who realize the truth of this insane illusion. It’s remarkable I have even experienced a handful of friends that have recanted their fundamentalism after learning of my plight. There is hope.

“However, anyone, no matter how insincere, can walk down an aisle and slip a ring on the finger of another human being.” You probably should have added: “As long as they are of opposite sexes.” Sadly, we are still quite a way away from true marriage equality.

JohnDecember 11, 2013 at 7:13 pm -

I think it would be very informative to have a post setting out the track record of marriages of ex-gay activists and publicly identified ex gays. Obviously, some of these marriages fail – the Paulks, the Westcotts, the Quinlans. Others, such as Richard and Jae Sook Cohen and Alan Chambers and his wife, have endured for a very long time.

It would be good to have all of this data in one place, and it could be updated as necessary. Since no ex-gay group or clinic has managed to publish data on the long-term marriage rates of ex-gays, or for that matter, any peer-reviewed data on any aspect of the ex-gay phenomenon, we should start our data collection.

Regan DuCasseDecember 12, 2013 at 3:16 pm -

A person sure can have a far more honest analysis about this subject on this site, or from gay focused ones, than Christian or ex gay industry sites.
I tried very hard to be open to ex gays and their message. But all I got was obfuscation and all of them saying the same things about the origins of their homosexuality.
In other words, there wasn’t an ounce of authenticity between them. And very much, something to prove to their new supposedly accepting heterosexual Christian community.
I’ve been making some very concise and essential observations of my own. There is just so much MANUFACTURING around ex gay people.
And a pathological need for validation that’s not in normal people gay or not. Because the territory they are navigating IS with a false front, they don’t have any idea if they are really getting it right or not.
Hence, the intense need for support, if not applause for what they are doing.
And most of all, the need to feel they are significant and important to those who THEY reject, like revenge rejection.
Because they couldn’t cut it as gay people. In a minority community fraught with not just rejection from the dominant culture, but from within.
I understand this as a black woman.
We too don’t have as big a pool of eligible black men to choose from, and we’re rejected out of hand and have to confront stereotypes as to a rationale for that rejection.
Even from black men.
What I would never do, is validate the stereotypes, or betray my sisters or brothers of color.
Nor reject them in turn.
Glatze’s perceptions of threat, or non acceptance is as pathological as everything else. He won’t own how younger gay people now have to justify themselves because he and his ilk keep putting it out there that gay young people have to reason to exist.

What I really can’t stand most of all, is treating heterosexuality as morally superior and desirable.
I know what being heterosexual is like. And it won’t get you any more favored than what happens among gay people because it’s ridiculous to consider one’s sexual orientation as an accomplishment the way the ex gay industry plays it.
You’re either straight or you’re not.
It doesn’t take practice or anything special to be it or have it.
Glatze won’t have to reveal his failures of intimacy with his wife, he just does that with gay people.
He feels no obligations to gay people and he won’t own why he was ultimately rejected.
His shortcomings aren’t a matter of any sexual orientation, gay or not.
It’s because of his shortcomings, PERIOD.
And no amount of affecting a straight life is going to make up for a lack of character.

Priya LynnDecember 12, 2013 at 4:09 pm -

Very interesting Regan, I’m amazed at how well you can see through “exgays”.

HaroldJanuary 26, 2014 at 1:36 pm -

Don’t believe for a minute Glatze is done with ex-gay activism. I recently wrote to him. He insists he is 100% hetero and wants to “help” others become like him. He also still adheres to a patriarchal form of Christianity, yet would not say whether he applies it to his wife.

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